[Q] Nandroid EFS Backups

The EFS partition doesn't really have too much to worry about anymore. At least as far as the IMEI is concerned. Cant hurt to make a copy of it of course, but ive never heard of it being any kind of issue on the Qualcomm based S3's.

What you do need to do is open a terminal emulator and enter the following. (Ill post an explanation of it when I get on my computer)

su
reboot nvbackup



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You are done! Sorry I havent posted back. Never made it to the computer before my bed last night!
Ill post it in a few min.

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---------- Post added at 09:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:35 AM ----------

This is a copy/paste of what I usually send to folks after helping to fix a missing IMEI. If anything is not clear, just let me know and I will try to explain better...



This is how to create an On-Device backup of your NV data using Samsung's built in utility.

It will backup your NV data across several partitions. These are partitions you should never have a need to mess with. So the backup is essentially permanent and you only ever need to do this once! You also cannot wipe it by flashing the usual stuff in Odin or recovery.
The really cool part about this backup though, is that if any NV corruption is ever detected, it will auto restore from the backup during boot up! This basically means it will protect you from ever having to worry about IMEI loss or other NV related problems!
If this had been run at the factory, or at least at the devices first boot, as I believe it should have been, I am convinced that we would never have had so many of these kinds of issues! No one who has run this backup has ever reported any problems with IMEI loss or NV corruption!

So, here is what you need to do:

Install Terminal Emulator from the store
Open and enter the following:


Thats it! Your device will reboot and create the backup. There shouldn't ever be a need to force a restore, but in case it does happen, just enter this:



Ok, you're all set! You are backed up and protected!
Happy Flashing!!!

In those cases the imei isnt actually lost. Its just not being read correctly and flashing the firmware like yo u did usually fixes it.
Lost imei's are common though but this backup will protect against it. Now that youve done so you shouldnt have much more than the usual stuff to worry about when flashing.

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DocHoliday77 said:

This is how to create an On-Device backup of your NV data using Samsung's built in utility.

It will backup your NV data across several partitions. These are partitions you should never have a need to mess with. So the backup is essentially permanent and you only ever need to do this once! You also cannot wipe it by flashing the usual stuff in Odin or recovery.
The really cool part about this backup though, is that if any NV corruption is ever detected, it will auto restore from the backup during boot up! This basically means it will protect you from ever having to worry about IMEI loss or other NV related problems!
If this had been run at the factory, or at least at the devices first boot, as I believe it should have been, I am convinced that we would never have had so many of these kinds of issues! No one who has run this backup has ever reported any problems with IMEI loss or NV corruption!

So, here is what you need to do:

Install Terminal Emulator from the store
Open and enter the following:

Code:

su
reboot nvbackup

Thats it! Your device will reboot and create the backup. There shouldn't ever be a need to force a restore, but in case it does happen, just enter this:

Code:

su
reboot nvrestore

Ok, you're all set! You are backed up and protected!
Happy Flashing!!!

Click to expand...

Click to collapse

Where exactly does it store the files? I did this a week ago and I'm just curious to see what it looks like.

You can't see it. I think is stored partly on modemst1, modemst2, fsg or grow, and maybe others.